By now you've all heard about the issue I went through last year that caused me to have to cancel my 2013 subscription. I resolved to attempt trading to pick up as many from this year's lineup as I could, expecting to only get one or two and maybe go back later to buy the ones I missed once I was recovered and making money. Nevertheless I had anticipated that I would ultimately end up never owning some. Well the fan community had been great and, much to my pleasure and surprise, I have managed to work out getting everyone from this year! (I even have a deal lined up to acquire Castle Grayskull!) The only catch is sometimes I've had to wait extra months before getting my hands on them. Such was the case with this guy which is why I'm only now getting to my review of Lord Dactus.

Lord Dactus was a new character introduced in the 200X cartoon series. I should mention that in the credits and scripts then it was spelled Dactys so apparently we have another case of renaming/respelling for trademark reasons. Despite his frightening appearance he was actually a good guy and old friend of King Randor. They actually played the whole "don't judge by appearances" card by having Adam panic and go into defensive mode when the Speleans first show up only for Randor to great Dactys and apologize for his son. [Dactys: "I've been apologizing for mine for years."] Kind of a broken moral though since logically Randor should have TOLD Adam, "Oh by the way the Speleans are scary looking bat people, but they're actually nice guys." At any rate, freaky or not he was one of the cooler designs so it was only a matter of time before he got a figure in Classics.

Lord Dactus comes in the standard MOTUC blister card package. Like Draego-Man he is really crammed in and barely fits. You'll notice his armor is off and wings unattached. On top of that his legs are bent to a semi squat due to his extra height which we'll look at in just a bit. The back of the box shows off a selection of other characters and gives us a bio card as always.

Not much to say here. The bio sticks to the established story from the 200X cartoon including how Dactus and Ceratus were former allies, during the Great Unrest, and later turned into bitter rivals. I can't think of any important information that was left out here. Who the hell is Princess Vess though?

Out of the package and put together Lord Dactus is quite an impressive figure. He truly captures the look from the cartoon with a lot of detail. The face sculpt has that scary but still noble look to him. His construction uses a lot of new parts, but also cleverly integrates existing tooling in a way that it may seem like new parts. He uses the standard torso, King Hiss shoulders, Mosquitor biceps, Whiplash legs and, of course, Draego-Man wings. His forearms are the Skeletor mold but may look new because of how his hands are made. Instead of simply attaching to the end they have cuffs that extend back over the forearms making it look like a whole mold, but they actually swivel with the normal articulation.

The back of his new loincloth piece features his tail. The tail is actually attached to the loincloth instead of using a new crotch piece and is not articulated. His wings plug into his armor and have the full ball jointed articulation movement. You need to take his head off to attach the armor and I suggest putting the armor on the body then attaching the wings as it makes it easier to connect the pegs that way. Dactus' head actually has an elongated neck which helps add to his height.

The real key to his extra height -he stand a good head taller than most figures- is in his unique feet. He actually has the Skeletor shins, though the newer ones that cover the ankle pins, but instead of attaching directly to the foot there is an extension making his leg longer and giving it his Spelean style bat foot look. This is a very cool way to make him stand out, though it does make it tough for him to stand up. Because of how he's made and with the extra weight from his wings and such it is hard to get him perfectly balanced standing up straight. His feet are big and flat but there is no rocker joint like on Leech to help keep them flat on the ground. This is the one real drawback to this otherwise great design. Given how much new sculpting went into him though it's not surprising that it couldn't be worked in. On that note, Dactus has only one accessory; his sword which is a prefect creation of the one he had and lent to Randor in the cartoon.

Lord Dactus is very 200X in design so he may seem to stand out a bit, but he's so freaking cool looking that it doesn't matter and he is a welcome addition to the line. It's great to expand beyond the initial lineup and embrace all generations. Dactus is sold out so check the secondary market and/or look to the Cyber Monday sale to see if he shows up. Good Luck and until next time, Good Journey.

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